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So we're coming up on a year since those announcements, with nothing new to speak of from the release till September 2010. Magma Chamber, a project many people were really looking forward to, has been cancelled and there has been no word on the graphical update pretty much since that PC Gamer article.

Then we have things they haven't really officially announced but are expected and in some cases (replays, obs, pause) are very necessary since they push this game as an eSport so hard.

Replays
Observer
Pause (for tourneys at the very least)
Detailed spell info on hero pages within the game
Achievements (Personally I don't care about this but I'm sure some do)
Stats for normal games (including stats for each hero)

So Magma Chamber has been scrapped in favor of a gimmick game mode that a huge portion of the playerbase (current/former WoW players) have already played for years (Arathi Basin/Eye of the Storm). Basic, BASIC features, everything in the second list, have been entirely neglected with absolutely no word from Riot on them except brief glimpses of observer at tournaments. Oh there were some excuses made about a pause function and lack of replays.

So why do so many people support Riot and continue to feed them money? Nothing new has come to the game since release except a client UI update and tons of heroes. Heroes are cool and all but unless you play extremely often then you have to spend ridiculous money to keep up if you want to play new heroes.

You ask why people are excited about Dominion, while those features that you perceive as basic are being left out.

I'll give you my opinion and my reasoning, which you might strongly disagree with, but since you want an insight as to why some people care more about than Dominion than those other features:

Dominion is a new game mode. I agree, it is gimmicky, and I probably won't play it as much as I play SR - but I'll still play it from time to time, I like a bit of variety, and this seems to be play out very different from SR. The "cut to the chase"-style of it, scrapping the laning phase in favor of constant PvP, seems like a natural (even if controversial) evolution for the MOBA genre (it's what all game genres do those days - they cut things to the chase), so I'd welcome this foresight into how that would be.

Replays would be a nice feature but, personally, I wouldn't use them. I don't have the time to sit through and watch my replays, and I don't think anyone would be interested in watching them either. As for watching replays of other players, I can already do that when I (rarely) feel like.

Observer Mode is pretty much the same. I wouldn't ever use it. I barely have time to actually play the game, I wouldn't want to sit in a custom game room observing random people play. When I feel like watching, I'd rather just watch some streams.

Pause is obviously something only from tournaments, as I really wouldn't like to have pause in your average games, even if very limited. Well, I don't plan on playing on any tournament, so...

Detailed Spell in-game Infos: I agree this should be implemented, it would be especially helpful for newer players that are still getting used to all the different champions in the game. Wouldn't make much difference directly for me at this point in time, though.

Achievements: I also don't really care about those.

Normal game stats, if I'm correct, actually were present on the game earlier on. They were deliberated removed for some reason. I too would like to have nice champion-by-champion statistics, but apparently Riot believes this is best left for Ranked.

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Basically, it's all about what directly affects me. I know replays, observer mode and pausing would be good for the game - but they wouldn't affect me, I wouldn't use them. That's why I'm more than happy about Dominion - it's a new game mode, something that I'll make use of.

It leaves out Dominion vs Magma Chamber. I believe Riot perhaps realized (correctly or not) that, after one year of expectation, Magma Chamber could be a bit of a letdown. In the end, it would feel like just "more of the same". So it's better for them to first launch something that's very different, like Dominion, before launching another SR-style map.

They overhauled the patcher, which is a major step towards implementing replays and observer mode.

They introduced the tribunal, which has made great strides in improving the quality of the community by greatly increasing the rate at which leavers, griefers, and trolls are punished.

While there are still some problem areas, game balanced has drastically improved over time. Is it perfect? No, and it never will be. Is it better? Remarkably so.

If you're really that unhappy, you're free to leave. You won't really be missed. Because there's a difference between complaining and criticizing. You're rather solidly doing the former.

But there are plenty of us that realize that for such a small company to have turned LoL into one of the world's largest multiplayer games, that's commendable. It means for all the things that Riot may do wrong or screw up, there's plenty they're getting right. You don't get your game to the competitive level of StarCraft 2 and Counter-Strike by doing a crappy job.

If you're questioning whether or not Riot is worth supporting, get off the game. The only evident thing you're worried about are new features that appeal to you. Riot has done continuous work debugging the game, upgrading server stability--all the things without which the entire game would collapse.

So either you go find a new game or you shut up and respect Riot's work.